School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Aylesford School?

In 2026/27, Aylesford School offered 166 places and 88 families named it as their first choice.

Below: what an appeal in Kent actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

0.53

first choices for every place available

88 first preferences for 166 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Aylesford School

There is no published appeal success rate for Aylesford School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Kent as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Kent, 27.6% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 1,757 of 6,368 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Kent.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Kent ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

Aylesford School turned first-choice families away in 4 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 1 of those years. In the other 3 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Aylesford School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.03 per place 183 first choices 177 places 2016/17 0.82 per place 120 first choices 146 places 2017/18 0.63 per place 103 first choices 163 places 2018/19 0.45 per place 80 first choices 176 places 2019/20 0.6 per place 108 first choices 181 places 2020/21 0.8 per place 144 first choices 180 places 2021/22 0.89 per place 160 first choices 179 places 2022/23 0.83 per place 147 first choices 177 places 2023/24 0.75 per place 134 first choices 178 places 2024/25 0.92 per place 164 first choices 178 places 2025/26 0.75 per place 133 first choices 177 places 2026/27 0.53 per place 88 first choices 166 places
First preferences per place at Aylesford School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 88 first preferences for 166 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Aylesford School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 177 183 160 1.03
2016/17 146 120 120 0.82
2017/18 163 103 103 0.63
2018/19 176 80 80 0.45
2019/20 181 108 108 0.6
2020/21 180 144 125 0.8
2021/22 179 160 145 0.89
2022/23 177 147 135 0.83
2023/24 178 134 132 0.75
2024/25 178 164 117 0.92
2025/26 177 133 119 0.75
2026/27 166 88 88 0.53

Places offered

166

in 2026/27

Named first choice

88

364 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

100%

88 of 88

Offers to families outside the council

12%

18 of 146 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 118882.

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

1,002

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

859

85.7% of capacity

Unfilled places

143

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

200

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that Aylesford School has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures Aylesford School reported 143 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 85.7% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Aylesford School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,044 places 959 on roll 2010/11 1,062 places 997 on roll 2011/12 1,066 places 988 on roll 2012/13 1,042 places 929 on roll 2013/14 1,015 places 934 on roll 2014/15 1,035 places 931 on roll 2015/16 1,035 places 865 on roll 2016/17 986 places 778 on roll 2017/18 970 places 723 on roll 2018/19 983 places 712 on roll 2020/21 990 places 762 on roll 2021/22 990 places 840 on roll 2022/23 1,044 places 869 on roll 2023/24 1,044 places 891 on roll 2024/25 1,202 places 904 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Academy sponsor led
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Kent

Postcode ME20 7JU. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 149319).

Other contested secondary schools in Kent

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.